I’ve never told anyone about my obsessive thoughts, I get random irrational obsessive thoughts that play over and over almost like a broken record like: “killing myself would be fun” or “‘maybe you should just kill yourself” I have absolutely NO suicidal ideation whatsoever, it’s just this empty thought that replays over and over, it feels like my mind is torturing me. Like it’s doing this on its own. There’s sometimes I’ve mentally screamed STOP!! Because I just wanted the broken record or my obsessive thinking to end. I’ve never been officially diagnosed so I’m not sure if I do have OCD but I’ve lived with these obsessive symptoms my whole life. I also always think I made a mistake, so I do things over and over and over again, always double checking.

Great response wander way .. if you have not officially been diagnosed Indiana you probably should. Based on what you wrote above it definitely sounds like OCD 110%. Here’s the thing , OCD is not a death sentence! But here’s where your going wrong ... if you haven’t been diagnosed then likely you haven’t begun to educate yourself on OCD. ERP exposure response therapy. Or CBT. Knowledge is power my friend and by suppressing your thoughts you will in fact make them worse and more frequent! If your obsession thought is to kill yourselve that is the thought ! (The obsession )... the compulsion is what you do to suppress the thought or ease the anxiety which only temporarily lasts and thought action fusion takes place and the vicious cycle continues. You mentally screaming to yourself to stop will only make your OCD way way way worse. You need to accept that shit ! Invite it into your head even in the times where your not thinking if it !! Laugh at the thought. If you have pure O there is a good chance that your intrusive thoughts get pretty draining. That’s when it’s time to think about them more. Habitualize your thoughts, make them so frequent that you mind gets board of them. When you let your thoughts be, they will let you be and that comes from a recovering OCD person of pure O! Yiu clearly want to live so go do it. Couple tips. OCD stories 11usa per month. Great podcasts !! Listen to tons of people that have thoughts that make yours sound like a cartoon. OCD panic attacks and related depression. Great book. I got it on audio 8 hours best thing ever. DARE another great book or you tube chrissie Hodges pure o. She’s fantastic!!!!! Been there done that and wrote the book. Last comment. If your checking that is also a compulsion. You need to resist the temptation to check. The reason you check is to ease your kind. I do it too easy said then done but I really try challenging my OCD more and more. When you get in touch with your brain and start to see it for what it is you’ll learn how to recognize all the things your doing to it to make it do things to you. Again knowledge is power. And exercise and clean eating , reading writing , goal setting and creative thinking are almost daily musts if you ever want to recover. Last words. If you do what is easy your life will be hard. But if you do what is hard your life will be easy. Discipline my friend !! Get at er !!!

I've had something similar. Any time I was mildly inconvenienced, extremely annoyed, very upset, anxious, depressed my response in my head would be to mentally speak the words "I just want to kill myself." This was actually before I knew I had OCD. It was pretty disturbing to think any inconvenience or issue put me over the edge to not wanting to live. But like you, no ideation. Just a response to anything stress inducing. I eventually started replacing it with "I love my life" - no idea why, where I got the idea, or if it's really effective for anyone but me. It took some time and a lot of slip ups, but eventually both mental responses just kind of went away and I now do neither.

I hear you. I feel the same way. I have suicide obsessions too. They are very bothersome.

Hey Serena. Great question and I actually just asked my phycologist this very same thing not long ago. I was so confused that every time I would say positive affirmations to myself that I was only creating more rituals and or more compulsions. Very confusing and very stressful!!!! ERP would suggest that you actually TRY to deliberately think about the thought. Let yourself listen to the thought. I try to really get in touch with who I am as a person. I’ve been struggling with the sickest most disturbing thoughts for as long as I can remember. I got to a point where I really wasn’t sure if I wanna live anymore because my OCD had convinced me that I was definitely capable of my thoughts and it was only a matter of time before I’m locked up in a mental institution. I haven’t read the book you listed above but CBT would suggest the idea of learning to change the way you think. So to effectively practice CBT and to tell yourself a million times a day how special you are how kind you are how beautiful you are how happy you are and how greatful you are might not feel right , and it’s highly likely you won’t buy it ! Your brain doesn’t know the difference between getting addicted to the good stuff or being addicted to the bad stuff so why not get addicted to the good stuff. This does not happen overnight and you have to give yourself permission to not always feel great. It’s not reality that anyone feels great and people like us want results and we wanted them yesterday!! It’s taken you years to think in a self defeating negative way and it will take time to turn that thinking around. Be careful what you practice practice makes perfect and you’ve been practicing for a long time how to think yourself right into the hole your in .. I have too and so has everyone in this website.... if your suffering from intuitive thoughts analyze your thinking. Every thought that hits your head you need to immediately decide if it’s irrational or rational. This helps me big time because I personally know that most of what I think is irrational. As soon as you can buy into that then the thoughts start to lose power. Next time your thinking of killing yourselves or jumping off a building picture yourself jumping off in a gorilla suite. If your thinking of harming the ones you love picture harming them with a paintball gun or a pie in the face. See the humour in your thinking. Laughing about how fucked up we have got our selves to think can really help . Irrational or rational. And if it’s irrational then turn it into something else. Your mind is powerful! You can control the way you think and more importantly when trying to recover it’s not even trying to control how you think, actually let that shit go all you need to do is control how you react to the thought and that is ERP in a nutshell! CBT is training your brain to think differently and react differently ERP is challenging your thoughts and bringing on the anxiety purposefully. Remember knowledge is power. Discipline is a must and truly believe who you really are is what will help to get you started. It’s called self doubting disease for a reason. I fight everyday to tell myself what kind of person I am, and honestly I’m just the last couple months I’m slowly starting to finally believe it! Be patient and be relentless. Tell your anxiety to give you more and demand the worst especially when you feel good and oddly enough you’ll soon start to see that the way you have been thinking and more importantly the way you have been reacting to your every thought is what keeps us all in a metal torture chamber called OCD. Time to break the chain !! Cheers guys ?

@thanks Curtis. You are always so helpful.

Good one Curtis! Good one!???

@Curtis I have a question concerning ERP, I am afraid by deliberately thinking about the thought, I will listen to the thought. How do you do your ERP and have your read the book “you can heal your life” which says daily positive affirmations can change a person’s life. How is repeated positive affirmation not a compulsion in this case? I think the theory in that book does conflict with that of ERP. Just so confused, but as I know that book helps many people.